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Brace yourself for the Game of Thrones finale with this Seven Kingdoms-inspired feast

May 03, 2019

The finale of Game of Thrones is coming and to mark the occasion, Matt Preston designs a feast fit for a king or queen inspired by the Seven Kingdoms. Just add wine.

How do we give Game of Thronesa proper send-off when it ends in two weeks? Surely by having all your Throner mates around to watch the finale with a menu inspired by the Seven Kingdoms.

This is easier than you might think – A Song of Fire and Iceauthor George RR Martin mentions food throughout the books. Inspiration for the food is shaped by the medieval-type setting and climate of each kingdom. With its gardens and cooling ponds, the food of Dorne could be similar to North African and Moorish dishes. In the bleak Iron Islands, the Ironborn are sustained by the sea so Scandinavian food springs to mind there, while in Westeros, especially King’s Landing, it’s about elegance and excess reminiscent of Rome at its imperial height.

One of the key devices of the food in the books is to illustrate the characters’ living circumstances. Set decorator Richard Roberts says his approach at the opulent King’s Landing feasts was to amp up the colour with exotic fruits and couscous heavy with bright berries. In colder Winterfell, meat and root vegetables dominate, while grey stews and stale bread hint at the decline in wealth of the Night’s Watch.

It’s a mark of Martin’s belief in the significance of food in Game of Thrones that he endorsed A Feast of Fire and Ice , a cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer, co-authors of the blog Inn at the Crossroads . Both blog and book are wonderful sources of inspiration. So, check them out, too, but here is my idea of the perfect finale menu.

Dothraki baked-heart dipWhile we’d baulk at serving raw horse heart, reference this with a dip of equal parts roasted artichoke hearts, parmesan and mayonnaise. Add red food colouring if you must. Serve it with crisp fingers of dark rye bread. Martin’s novels are full of references to black bread – it’s served to Jon Snow and Samwell Tarly up on the Wall with mutton stew and with the fish stew Theon Greyjoy has on returning to the Iron Islands in A Clash of Kings . Black bread needs to be on the table.

Cersei’s chestnut soupIt’s at the Lannister feasts that the greatest culinary gems appear so maybe spin the chestnut soup Cersei serves in A Clash of Kingsand make a cream of mushroom soup with dry-fried mushrooms and garnish it with chopped chestnuts and thyme. Oxtail and pumpkin soups are also referenced in the books if you want another option.

Flea Bottom’s bowl o’ brownThe so-called ‘smallfolk’ or low-born of King’s Landing’s slum live off this evocatively named soup. Matt Moran’s comforting pearl barley minestrone is a much tastier alternative. Throw in a few browned chicken wings to boost the flavour and hint at the sort of mystery meats that might have popped up in the original. As Gendry recalls to Melisandre, “We’d pretend the meat in them was chicken. We knew it wasn’t chicken.”

Roast lamb or honey chickenMany of the main dishes nod to medieval feasts such as wild bull on a huge spit or tables groaning with hot crab or sweetbread and pigeon pies, snails in honey and garlic and quails drowned in butter. For economy and flavour you might be better referencing more down-to-earth main courses. Perhaps roast leg of lamb with a garlic and herb crust with braised peas and onions like Tyrion Lannister requests in his prison cell only to be served a bean stew, or the honeyed chicken served to King Robert when he visits the Starks at Winterfell. It’s the same chook dish that Jon Snow later shares with his direwolf, Ghost. Colin Fassnidge’s honey mustard roast chicken with lentils would work well, as would Warren Mendes’ harissa roast chicken (with honey, too) with chickpeas and feta, which has an almost Dornish feel. Serve your honey chicken with slow-braised onions dripping with dark sticky pan juices like the Starks did.

One of the most evocative dishes is the charred beef and onions served on thick slices (aka trenchers) of bread served to Catelyn Stark on her way up to The Eyrie in the first novel. To avoid overcooking the beef and keeping it at its juiciest, par-cook small onions (or shallots) in the microwave, then skewer them whole with chunks of steak and grill them. Serve the skewers with a salad of spinach and chickpeas.

Simpler still would be to make a stew to eat on your knee. These one-pot wonders pop up all through Martin’s books, from a Dothraki stew of horse, honey and ‘pepper pods’ (which I’d read as chilli) and simple dishes of slowcooked beans to pepper-crab stew and creamy chowder loaded with barley, clams, cod and crabmeat served San Francisco-style in a hollowed-out loaf. In Dance with Dragons , Martin describes it as “the sort of stew that warmed a man right down to his bones” (half a dozen chowder recipes at delicious. com.au fit that description).

DessertIn the books, the characters chow down on plums sprinkled with crushed nuts or baked apples fragrant with cinnamon, but it’s the iced blueberries with sweet cream (like Sam and Jon enjoy when they swear allegiance to the Night’s Watch) and the lemon cake Sansa Stark is obsessed with that make the most obvious desserts for a Game of Thrones dinner. Sweeten the cream with honey and toss the blueberries with lemon juice before freezing them. They’d go well with a lemon drizzle cake if you wanted to push the boat out. And, if so, might I suggest the boat is a Braavosi trade galley captained by Davos Seaworth.

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